Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Charlotte stared hard at her barely-drank cup of coffee. She might be crying in his dreams, but she was not going to cry now. You got that, Charlotte? No crying in public!
"It pains me to admit this now, but you turned out to be my tipping point. All the other crazy stuff I could handle, but every time I dreamt of you, it just messed me up. I didn't even know if you were real or if I had lost my mind. And when none of the doctors could still find anything wrong with me, I was at the end of my tether and I knew I had to make a decision."
Charlotte had a feeling she already knew what that decision was, but even so—-
"I told myself I'd get on with my life, and to stop giving a fuck no matter how much crazy shit happened around me. If there was a person who looked familiar, I'd tell myself I was imagining things and move on. If there was a place that seemed like I had already visited before, I'd avoid it and go somewhere else. And if there was a night that I still dreamt of you, I would..."
His lips tightened, and the sight of it made her own chest tighten as well. There it was, Charlotte thought numbly. She had a feeling his decision would lead to...that. And so it had.
"I'm sorry, Charles."
"You have nothing to be sorry for." And he didn't. He truly didn't. Only someone unreasonable would've expected Sano to stay faithful to a girl in his dreams, and she was not unreasonable. At the moment.
Sano was looking at her knowingly. "I have a feeling you'll still make me pay for it."
"Of course not!" But Charlotte also quickly changed the subject, asking, "When did it all start making sense?"
"The first of March."
Charlotte's head was spinning again. Since that was when Philippe and Cha-Cha had their wedding, could Sano truly be God's answer to her prayers?
"I didn't dream of you the night before, but when I woke up that day, it was as if some veil had been lifted, and all of my memories were suddenly there for me to remember. And I remembered everything. All at once. I remembered every little thing about you, about our lives, and that was when I knew I had been Landon all along."
Hearing Sano refer to himself as Landon made Charlotte feel as if her whole world was crashing down on her. She wanted to believe him. She really wanted to, but—-
"You told me you remembered things as a boy," she whispered shakily. "But Landon and I were still together that time. So you weren't really remembering things, but you were seeing what Landon and I were doing—-"
"I know."
"Then what does that make you?" Charlotte asked unevenly. "His doppelgänger?"
"I suppose that's one word for it, but it's more complex than that. A doppelgänger typically implies one looking exactly the same as the other, but that's not true in this case, is it?"
Charlotte shook her head.
"I've thought about this a lot," Sano said quietly, "and the only explanation that made sense and felt right to me was that somehow, and for reasons only God would know...a fraction of my soul - of Landon's soul - went in this body, and that was why I had always felt incomplete my entire life. It was as if my whole life, I was waiting for me to be complete...again. And that was how it felt, when I remembered you. Just like you were my tipping point in the past, you were my catalyst now because... "
A moment later, his eyes started to gleam, and Charlotte knew exactly what he was thinking.
"I know you want to say it, Charles."
Charlotte immediately lifted her chin. "I have no idea what you're talking about." And she did not. She so did not!
"I know you, Charles. I know you're dying to say it."
Charlotte was fighting against the urge to squirm.
"This is your chance to say a cheesy line in real life. A chance to turn your life into one of those rom-coms you love watching over and over."
Jerk!
This man was such a jerk, to use her love for rom-coms against her like this.
"Should I say it again, my Charles?"
"No!" Yes, yes, yes oh please!
He cupped her face, and it was all she could do not to swoon.
"When I woke up that day..."
Charlotte was squirming in her efforts to resist—-
"I remembered everything..."
But the temptation was just too much—-
"Because I complete you."
The words had flown out of her mouth all of her own, and Charlotte was all at once mortified. All she could do at that point was wait helplessly for the inevitable, which was for Sano to laugh at her for falling for his trap and for being so cheesy even at her age.